Silver Lake Poll Report

Just got back from voting in Silver Lake and while the polls seemed like a ghost town when we were there (maybe 4 other voters total) the attendants said we got in at the perfect moment stating that it’s been pretty packed all morning and that the line just finally eased up. Everything worked like a charm and man I love those ink-a-vote thingys. What was the scene at your polling location?

Playa Del Rey polling place was full, not packed but with a 3-5 minute wait to vote, at 10:30 AM. The poll worker said it had been quiet early in the morning, but had been steadily picking up as the day wore on.

A gallery adjacent to my office has been converted to a polling place today and it’s surprisingly busy. There hasn’t been a moment all day when it’s been silent, but there hasn’t been a line out the door or anything.

I asked the poll workers at 12:45 and they said that 90 out of a potential 580 voters (about 15.5% of all potential voters, not including absentee ballots)had already voted, and that the busiest time for them is from 5:00 till closing.

As we vote at the same polling place (though different precincts), Sean, I can attest that it was busy this morning. Not as busy as some years, but there was a line which took longer than the actual voting. About 10% of the other folks on the same page as me on the voter rolls had already voted by 8:30 this morning.

I wish they would quit switching our tables around though … they make it look like I’ve never voted before when I go in there and approach the table that I voted at last time.

The Great Vision Church at Normandie and 5th was not crowded. There was no wait to vote but there was a line to drop off ballots (I think there was some sort of problem, but it seemed to be resolved within minutes). My only complaint is accessibility – I pulled my son up a dozen stairs, backwards, in his stroller – but it didn’t occur to me to voice it until after I’d left and suddenly wondered how folks in wheelchairs vote in my precinct. There does seem to be an entrance with a ramp at the other side of the church, behind a locked gate. But I don’t know how one would get it opened up.

Sorry to keep the numbers down in Silverlake. We moved over the summer and never sent in the form, so I went back to Echo Park and voted in the old ‘hood instead. There weren’t too many people there at the time, but school was just letting out, and it was like trying to swim upstream to get in the building. I should have gone a little earlier!

Cybele makes a good point: the combined polling places (where a few precincts get squished together because we’ve broken our county coffers with the endless stream of damn elections – Arnold, I’m lookin’ at you . . . .) make for both good and bad false impressions.

Bad: the crowds are just the critical mass of several former polling places in one place. It’s faux-busier.

Good: it creates a “hey, look, everyone is voting buzz” that really does make the process more attractive to people.

I was absentee – so my polling place dining room table was very quiet. Good snacks though.